ID='HTML3'

Recruitment is still open, so if you want to join us, visit page called "Join us".

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

[52] Emphatic structures (I): Inversion

Perhaps the inversion of subject and verb is long and eagerly awaited topic on this blog so today I am going to introduce this area of the English grammar. In the next part of the article, which I hope I will be able to put here before Sunday, you will find some examples of the so-called 'emphatic structures' so that you can easily identify them in English texts and dialogues and also use them for your own purposes. Enjoy!

Normally, inversion in English occurs in questions. In other cases the use of inversion is optional and one has to be careful about overusing it, in which case inversion may look and sound too dramatic and strange. Obviously, the purpose of inverting subjects and verbs is to put the emphasis on what we cosider the most important part of the sentence, or utterance, at a particular time. Inversion is introduced either after certain lead words (never, nor) or some sentence patterns (no sooner ... than). It is also important to stress that there are two types, or patterns, of inversion, which are discussed separately to be less confusing for you.

Examples of lead words:

negative adverbials: never (before), on no account, not only, no sooner, in no way, in/under no circumstances, on no account, on no occasion, on no condition, only then

These words follow the first pattern of inversion, which will be demonstrated below by a couple of examples:

PHRASE + (AUXILIARY) VERB + SUBJECT + VERB + THE REST OF THE SENTENCE

wyrażenie + operator/czasownik + podmiot + czasownik + reszta zdania

For example (Polish translation provided in italics. Subject-verb intversion is difficult to translate into Polish so I just used just loose, 'more-or-less' translations):

Never before + have + I + been + so happy in my life. Nigdy wcześniej w życiu nie byłam tak szczęśliwa.

Only in this way will she be able to solve this problem. Tylko w ten sposób zdoła ona rozwiązać ten problem.

Little do we know about the accident. O wypadku wiemy mało.

BUT:

after: only after,only by, only if, only when, not since, not till/until we use the other type of inversion, which is simply inverting the main clause in a sentence, not what follows the lead phrase. Compare:

Only when you see him,will you realize how much he has suffered.

The green fragment was inverted, instead of what is placed directly after "only when". We must be careful with these phrases, especially with not till/until, or not since. Other examples:

Not since I was a child have I had such a wonderful holiday. Od dzieciństwa nie miałem tak udanych wakacji.

Not until the calculator was constructed, did people have to use abaci. Dopóty nie skonstruowano kalkulatora, ludzie używali liczydeł.